Last week the CJEU released its judgment on excessive pricing that could prove of interest to many of our readers.

In 2013 a dispute arose between the Latvian Competition Council and the AKKA/LAA, the Latvian equivalent of the PRS, responsible for licensing the public performance of musical works and collecting the resulting royalties. AKKA/LAA, a monopoly organisation, was fined for excessive pricing (and thus an abuse of a dominant position under Article 102 TFEU) but took this ruling to the courts. In finding that the collecting society had engaged in excessive pricing, the Latvian competition authority had made direct comparisons with prices in the neighbouring states of Estonia and Lithuania and found that the rates applied in Latvia were two to three times higher than those applied in the other two Baltic States. The authority also made a comparison to the rest of the EU on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis. On a reference to the CJEU, the Court was asked to rule on several important questions relating to this assessment.

First, the CJEU dealt with how to make valid comparisons in assessing the imposition of unfair prices. The Court ruled that such comparisons are valid, provided that the relevant Member States are selected according to ‘objective, appropriate and verifiable criteria’ and that the comparison is made on a ‘consistent basis’. Such criteria could include factors as concrete as GDP per capita, or as loose as ‘cultural and historical heritage’. Notably, the Court held that a comparison cannot be considered to be insufficiently representative merely because it takes a limited number of Member States into account. Whilst such a clear statement on the legal position is welcome, recent case law has shown that agreeing objective criteria by which to select comparables is not trivial. For example, in the Unwired Planet litigation (see here), in attempting to agree a FRAND rate for a licence in the telecommunications sector, there was much debate over which licences were the most comparable.

Second, the CJEU dealt with the circumstances in which prices would be considered excessive. The Court ruled that there is no minimum threshold, but instead that Article 102 will bite where a difference in price is ‘both significant and persistent on the facts’. Looking at the growing number of actions against pharmaceutical companies for excessive pricing, most notably the Commission investigation into Aspen (reported on in August), a key question remains as to what amounts to a significantly and persistently higher price. An obvious starting point, now validated by this ruling, is a comparison with other Member States, but with so many different national healthcare and regulatory systems in place in the EU this may not be straightforward.

Overall, this decision provides some welcome guidance, but there still remains plenty to ponder!